Honesty
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16:13-16
Right Livelihood is about honesty – honesty with self and others. Are we honest in all our transactions with each other?
During the 2004 election campaign in Australia a pollster was asked why the opposition campaign to expose the lies of Prime Minister did not work. The pollster said, “Because everybody knows that all politicians lie anyway.” What a shameful situation; we expect politicians to lie, to be dishonest.
In Right Speech we looked at the pervasiveness of lies. It is essential that we develop a deep aversion to lies. Of course, we always start with self, so every time we notice that we have lied we should feel shame. It is shameful to be dishonest.
Rev. Mario Schoenmaker always encouraged those he taught to be honest with themselves; not to think too much of themselves, or too little. If we are clever in a certain area then we should not try to play it down. Equally we should be at ease with our flaws.
If we are to be honest with ourselves then we must allow others to be honest with us. We should be able to receive criticism without jumping to our own defence. How often does a thing go unsaid because we cannot bear to hear the truth? When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; writes St John. The spirit of truth is our I AM. Our I AM knows everything that we have ever done, in every life that we have ever lived on this earth. All our I AM wants is for us to become conscious of its presence. It is the personal I (lower self) that cannot face the power of honesty. The personal I feels displaced by the higher self, the I AM. The personal I acts instinctively to protect its territory.
As we walk Buddha’s eightfold path our goal is to resolve karma and to assist the world to move forward. Resolving karma depends on honesty which exists in the presence of the Spirit of truth.
While we remain unconscious of our I AM by default we live dishonestly. We deceive ourselves and each other about who we really are. We naturally act out of the smallness of our being and therefore betray the dignity of the mighty human spirit. We either express a false humility or a puffed up ego, and all because we cannot bear honesty.
We are often unconscious of the fact that we are afraid of our I AM. To the extent that we are afraid of honesty is the extent to which we are afraid of our I AM. Right Livelihood means that we have the right relationship with our I AM for this time in evolution.
The esoteric teachings are dangerous – if we don’t live them. We can’t nod our head in agreement with spiritual truth and then integrate it into our behaviour. We can’t say that we love Christ and then hate the person who upsets us. We can’t say that we love Christ and then act out of dishonesty – for then we dishonour Christ because Christ, St Paul tells us, “is in you”.
Right Livelihood is about integrity; uprightness; trustworthiness; faithfulness; justice; equity; fairness; sincerity. All these things require us to be strong and courageous.
Right livelihood is about being ethical in all our transactions and never hiding from the truth. We deal dishonestly with our friends when we withhold information from them. Dishonesty prevails when we say things about them to others that we would not say to them directly.
At the foundation of right Livelihood is love. Love, the substance of the I AM, is the ultimate honesty. The more we can be honest, the more we love and then the closer the bond not only with our own I AM but also with the I AM of others. By deciding that all our transactions will be motivated by love, especially loving those we don’t like, Right Livelihood will be achieved. Then we experience that love knows no fear because it makes us whole and free.